Panther-pweening and serpent taming.

So last night, Wulf and the good folks of Chaotic Divinity were supposed to go try the Broodmother Onyxia. This was, however cancelled because of a lack of willing and attuned bodies, especially in the healing side. I, for one am now glad that we've now made Onyxia Attunement a prerequisite of membership, because it's a bloody disgrace that we've got 50+ folks willing to do Molten Core with us, but we can't get the same amount of folks interested in Onyxia.

So, instead of fighting the mother of the Black Dragonflight, I passed my time beating up some of her kiddies on Burning Steppes and skinning their corpses. I kinda like this kind of mechanical grinding every so often, as the downtime makes a welcome change from the taxing concentration needed on boss fights. Whilst I was brain-disengaged, a call came up for folks to five-man Stratholme Undead. I answered the call and soon our little five man team was underway, all from Wulf's guild, Suprised Survivors. Sadly, although Celice did her best, a Paladin as sole healer for 3 DPSers and a Tank doesn't really work. We struggled through about four wipes before the first boss.

It was about then our fearless (read: Mad) leader Gunvladh came online. Deciding the lack of a raid was a bad thing, he quickly organised what CDers were online into a run at High Priestess Arlokk, the Panther Aspect in Zul'Gurub. Our little 5-man group was absorbed into the 20-man raid and off to Stranglethorn Vale we headed.

Arlokk's still hard work for us in our pre-epic geared state. The fight requires great healing, solid tanking and utterly insane DPS (you have basically three 30-second bursts to kill her in or the fight's unwinnable). We wiped, we wiped again, we ultimately wiped four or five times, but we finally got her. Our tactics were sound from the get go, it was just a case of getting the group balance right and having a bit of luck. In the end, the only time Wulf survived to the end of the fight was the time that she went down.

Afterwards, several of the raid kindly agreed to help me go across to the pyramid in the center which houses Hakkar, the final boss. We weren't going to kill him, just to allow Wulf to tame one of his sons. It took a few attempts, and in my careless, fatigue-ridden state, I confess that I nearly wiped the party on a few occasions, but in the end I got one of the Sons, whom I have now named Felwind. Not a bad end to a potentially dissapointing evening.